Synopsis

Youtarou Hanabusa is a Knight of the World, an order of knights active in the present time, whose job it is to aid those in need. Whenever someone cries out for help, Youtarou will be there! As the hero Knight Lancer, Youtarou dons a cape and mask, and wields an impressively powerful lance. His intentions might be noble, but a knight kissing ladies’ hands in the 21st century can come across as just a bit strange…

Youtarou just can’t help himself. He has what he calls White Knight Syndrome: whenever someone is in need, his body reacts automatically in a “knight-like manner.” His fighting abilities and kindness are put to the test when he saves the young Makio Kidouin. Youtarou discovers that Makio is the only daughter of a wealthy family, and lives alone in the care of a group of maids.

All Youtarou wanted was to leave his knighthood behind and start a normal life. But when he decides to take Makio under his wing, he becomes involved in something much bigger than him. Now Youtarou must defend Makio, without giving away the secret identity of the Knight Lancer she idolizes.

If anything I do have to say about Lance N Masques in a nice and compelled sentence… it’s a very nice and good piece of shit of an anime. Yes, you heard me. It’s a nice and good piece of shit of an anime, it’s technically the definition of a cringey as hell show where you want to go to throw yourself off of the roof and curse at the sky and aiming towards the heavens “It’s a piece of crap!!” until Jesus himself hears your call and you will beg to the savior of human beings to take you to his holy world. That’s
how I felt when I was watching this show, in fact, I never thought I felt so sick that I felt like I got ebola out of the first episode. If you think about it, the show has a lot of flaws and it’s not really good to have so many issues with the anime. Indeed I will admit I was expecting something at least nice about it, but when you get towards the first episode… that’s when you all should quickly drop it, or in fact, if you have not started the show, don’t watch it at all. Don’t touch this ebola fest of an anime. It's dangerous if you do. But if you want to stick around to see my thoughts on one of the worst shows this year 2015, that’s not as bad as Shinmai Maou no Testament but it’s far worse than Cancer Lovers, go ahead and stick around with me as we go on the adventure of Cheesy and Mouses.

Story:

To explain in short about the story department (if this review is going to be straight on short hopefully) is not even good to begin with. The first thing that you get in the beginning of the show is your stereotypical start, although that’s nothing bad, it quite affects the impression on the person depending who’s watching it. As for the first episode it was quite bad because the introduction of the characters were very bad and out of place, and the second thing being the cheesy dialogue the main protagonist delivers through it. Seems pretty obvious by the first thing that I stated, you will assume that the show will get worse. Indeed, it does even get worse than the previous episodes, and the mix bag of world building as well.

The world building in the show and the aspects introduced do not make sense whatsoever in the show, as it seems like they want to shove it down your throat like your mother force feeding broccoli on your mouth to get an engrossed satisfaction.

The world building doesn’t make sense because they add too much aspects of it for example talking horses and fighting maids, etc. It doesn’t make sense and it’s a mess in the overall product, it's like having a tied on knot and it could never get untangled.

And the world building doesn't work at all because those said aspects shoved down on the show are not even executed, they just throw them down for the sake of having something interesting in the show and it failed to do that.

For the pacing I would say it’s very horrible and at the same time the transitions doesn't go well with the events, and it’s execution to it wasn’t nice at all, it just feels like the shots from the devil were going through your veins and head, even towards the heart, that it’s intolerable to even watch.

Nothing comes forward with this show when it comes to that either, and as for the dialogue, let’s go and say it’s cheesy and it makes someone want to get cringed by it. When you read the subtitles it’s pretty much the definition of not wanting to study even math, because you cannot tolerate and want to do so.

Trust me, if anything I hate from shows is cringey dialogue where it seems too cheesy like whipping out nachos you would eat when you are drunk with processed American cheese all over it and stuffing down your mouth all the way that you would look like the KFC kid (not being racist by the way).

As for the romance (since there are some hinting towards that) it just feels completely jarring and when they try to develop the relationship in a way between the two main characters it just doesn't go well at all. In fact they just shove down to the head all of that and it's making it look very horrible to watch, even Akagami had something like that but the development worked in some way despite my issue being the forced relationship between the two main characters in that show. You get my point across.

Did I also mentioned in this review that the comedy in this case are cliche are as underwhelming as I thought? I mean sure comedy is subjective but most of the comedy in here were just stabbing through my veins, and comedy is subjective so whatever i didn't find it funny you could find it funny. Who knows, at least I could take my uncle's jokes.

In the overall way, the story is one out of the many failed aspects of the show, and my review isn’t over when it comes towards later on in the series.

Characters:

Now this is where I go and take the cake with my satisfaction to ditch the show in a way, how about some cliché and unmemorable, not characterized nor developed cast of characters?

Now in all honestly these type of characters aren’t really that bad unless the way they’re portrayed would be fine, however for this show however the show portrays them as simply hollow shallows and to my personal opinion I just don’t give a shit about them.

Yotarou is your shining knight in armor character with his cheesy personality of a protective hero, while I will say his two switching personalities were alright, his character as a whole is cringe worthy to my soul that I want to go to and hear Miyuki saying “Onii-sama” more or something, anything is better than this guy. His backstory is also uninteresting because there’s no build up to even care about the shady guy. That’s what I’ll say about him.

Makio is your loli girl with the whole “I want to be saved by the main hero” character. Although the show tries to make her feel important or anything but due to her introduction and her personality it’s quite awful in my opinion, and she still ends up being just being saved by him and all. I literally will say being saved by a main character is fine if done right or have something to backup the reasons why the female character got saved so many times, for this case since she’s a 6 year old girl well… you will know how this is going.

The other characters are just hollow personalities and me not caring about the makes the show worse because me not caring shit about them hurts the overall system and it’s still hurting.

And this is not the end of the deal to be honest, keep going on the HOWDY RIDE FOR… the art and animation.

Art/Animation:

Oh this is one of my favorite parts of reviewing, but unfortunately for this show there are a lot of issues with this as well. Even bad shows would have nice art/animation, but this doesn’t have the slightest.

The quality and art of the show is pretty much Cross Ange in a nutshell, with little effort to be done with it and it looks very horrible in terms of the background because it looks quite too plain and at the same time the designs for the characters do not fit with them at all.

Not to mention the artstyle for the character designs are very lazy and the expressions they create cannot even be seen due to the very lack of effort to even make a smile.

Example one of the episodes where Makio and Yotarou were talking her expression cannot be seen and it looked like these old sew dolls that were made by hand.

Also the angles they take are lazy and at the same it looked like the director just sprang himself out of his chair and said do whatever the fuck you want. Pretty much that’s how I take it.

The animation takes the combination with the art making the whole product untouchable, as for the animation is really bad and inconsistent, choppy and the lack of effort done in a way, and only a few scenes of the anime looked actually average but it was better than what I stated before. It’s basically Tokyo Ghoul Root A combined.

Character designs as a whole, they’re quite unoriginal and at the same time you can obviously tell, the characters look like the shotas and lolis. And oh yes, they obviously are like that and even Makio.

In all honesty the art and animation is only memorable in the Opening, and let’s go for the last bit, the music/sound.

Music/Sound:

I will actually say some props with the anime at least, because the ost holds the show at least strong enough, but not to the point of saving it at least. The OST gives a more El Zorro type of vibe when it comes to the scenarios and its quite decently done and at times as a standalone its nice to listen to, but when it comes to that it really doesn’t save the show much but it’s an accomplishment.

Sound is mediocre at best with somehow nothing to stand out for the entirety of the show considering it doesn’t go well with the events going around in each scene, with a few that do fit rather okay.

As for the Opening and Ending? I will say I’m gonna give some points for the Opening since that’s one of the memorable things from the anime. It’s not one of the best in this season or the year however the Opening song is one of the most enjoyable things to hear since it does give a nice beat to it.

As for the Ending there’s nothing much to say about it for my eyes, it's just not one of my personal favorites then again songs are quite per taste.

Overall Enjoyment:

The only thing I enjoyed from this anime is only the Opening song and the soundtrack, along with that, nothing more regarding on the show. I did not enjoyed anything from this at all, and even if I did it doesn't save the show at all because the cons would always defeat the pros of the anime series, and the pros are very miniscule and the cons/flaws takes the heavy point more into the spectrum. If anything, if anyone enjoys this show but to my eyes this would be considered a guilty pleasure. It's so bad that you could laugh at how cliche, cheesy and untolerable it is to watch. Trust me... I've just can't take this show more than a laughingstock.

In Conclusion:

Lance N Masques is nothing good by any means necessary, it's so shit that it makes even the most mediocre shows better than this, even Testament despite the show being an ecchi and borderline soft core porn but that at least it's better since that has a standard budget and enjoyable cast that I could have fun with, or at least to care a bit.

And even if it did had some few things that were good (if it had any) it doesn't really make up for everything the show did through 12 episodes, which is deepening itself more into the sea until it choked itself with seaweed hanging around at the bottom.

The show is the definition of Ebola level that should be put on the pits of hell, it should go onto the hell hole where it belongs, and if anyone wants to know if they would watch it, I will give a thing. Watch Episode 1 if you want, but I warn you not to, but if you happen to know why I say to people to drop it, now you know. And if you happen to not go and take a shot on this, then good for you, because then you wouldn't be suffering pain and struggles. You're better off watching the memes people made on facebook about this show because it's so atrocious that it's only use as a meme material to backshit it.

As you can probably tell from the rating, I absolutely despised this anime. There isn't a single redeemable quality about it. I do not recommend this anime to anyone.

Story: 2
The story is very simple, the protagonist has White Knight Syndrome, and he's a Knight. How very convenient. the rest of the story consists of saving the same 3 people over, and over. getting kidnapped over and over, and gaining protagonist powers due to the plot.

Art: 2
The adults are lolis, the horse is a loli, the lolis are lolis. Oh, and there is also the background which looks okay, the style didn't appeal to me.

Sound: 3
Not
much to say here, the sound was pretty average. except there are too many lolis, they all sounded like toddlers.

Character: 1
I'm just going to reference a connection between 3 of the characters here.
"You saved me, so you are now my daddy. This girl who is younger than me is my mommy."

Enjoyment: 2
If too much of a good thing is a bad thing, wouldn't too much of a bad thing be a good thing? Well no. This anime was absolutely dreadful, and it is still absolutely dreadful.

Overall: 2
I'm going to crawl back into my cave now. There is nothing more to say.

Lance N' Masques is not a series for everyone. In particular, if you are someone who needs their anime to be heavily realistic, or full of grit, or to have some deep message to it, then you might as well just close this page now and walk away as this anime won't satisfy you in the slightest.

If, on the other hand, you are after a fun and quirky series, that mixes together a fairly large number of genres in a way that still feels comfortable, then this might just be what you are after.

There are many different ways of interpreting and watching this series, but
in my view this series is, at its heart, a comedy, although there are certainly sections that are not comedic in the slightest (including, incidentally, pretty much the whole of the last episode). However, I believe that in general treating it as a comedy is the best way of watching it - enabling you to appreciate that the lack of realism is deliberate, and done for comic effect. This, the absurdity or at times sheer imagination of what is being presented, is the main source of entertainment in the series, rather than gags or laugh out moments.

Some of the action scenes, particularly those not involving the main character himself, seem designed to attract the curiosity of the viewer rather than to engross them with the suspense of the action, whilst others are more of the more standard type, rooting for the hero's success. Whichever type they fall under, though, there is nothing even remotely realistic about any of them, and indeed several of the fights are won in ways that wouldn't even make sense in reality, which would obviously detract from the series still further for the viewer who craves realism.

The cast of the series is centred around Yotaro, the protagonist, but each of the fairly large number of characters has a distinct personality, and every one of them has their own distinct relationship with Yotaro, which vary from the obvious to the outright absurd. The characters are, indeed, another of the series' strengths.

That said, not all is positive about this series. The art style in particular is, to say the least, rather unusual, and most noticeably so when it comes to the characters faces. Some of their heads are literally as wide as they are high, and I swear there's something odd about the noses as well. This will likely take a few episodes to get used to.

The plot itself is in some senses rather repetitive, and not everything that happens fully makes sense either. Certain themes, such as kidnapping/hostage taking, show up rather more often than they should do, to the point where someone just watching for the plot may find themselves getting tired of it by the end. There is, though, enough variety that this doesn't detract from the series if you don't let it do so.

In short, the plot is weak, and the art style can take a bit of getting used to, but the characters are good and so is the humour.
Given that, as already mentioned, this is a comedy series (no matter what MAL's genres may claim at the time of writing), the latter two things are, in my view, rather more important than the former two, and thus, again in my view, the series is a good one overall.

I looked at the other reviews and was surprised at some peoples perspectives, and then in agreement with others. So allow me to shove my bias opinion down your throat.
First off, this show is bad, like really bad. A lack of interesting characters, a simplistic story which jumps all over the place and lacks an over-arching story/goal, cookie cutter characters who face “wavering” in their ideals yet never show any character development as result, boring art style; all in all it makes for a boring and uninteresting show. If you can complement this show on anything it would be the music. While not amazing it
is nothing to scoff at; from the above average intro sequence which was nicely choreographed and pleasing to the eye, to the multitude of either upbeat and fun fighting or atmospheric music.
Enjoyment: 3
To put it simply, I did not enjoy this show at all. I watched the first episode and for the time assigned a 5 to the show seeing as how it was ok I didn’t know where it would go from there. I wasn’t excited or disappointed with what was given to me. I proceeded to pick the show up again 3 weeks and 3 episodes later. Watching episode 2 and 3 I gained new hope for the show. As my grade on MAL was supposed to raise to a 6. I am used to harems so I thought that the show would follow the usual harem route. Oh boy was I wrong though. Soon after considering raising the grade, the show dropped to a new level as did my interest. I realized that the show was trying so hard to come off as edgy, but it just wasn’t. Eventually I found myself barely managing to get through each individual episode.
Characters: 4
Usually after watching a show I usually have a best girl, however there wasn’t really any character I really rooted for in the stupidly shallow harem Youtarou was building. Out of the many characters the only ones that I felt were above average, and slightly interesting were Yoriko the maid and Shirohime the horse (I found the damn horse more interesting than most of the other character, and she can only yell her annoying puryuu. I both hated and loved the character)
Character Development: 3
The only reason I didn’t give this a 1 was due to the ending monologue given by our main heroin Makio, she actually does grow as a human by the end of the show. If only she could have made such growth without the need of our all-powerful main protagonist. I understand that the show wants to pose as a romance but does she really have to have character development thanks solely to Youtarou’s actions. I was disappointed with all of the characters to say the least
Plot: 3
Wait, your telling me there was an actually reason behind all the fighting, because if there was one I didn’t notice it. Aside from acquiring more girls, protecting said girls, there is no plot development worthy of notice.
Pacing: 3
Only reason why this section actually gets points is because it at least has a conclusion (if you can call it that). Everything is terribly jumbled up in that the fights are not well directed and quickly lose my interest, especially seeing as its hard enough to actually keep my interest when the characters keep breaking out into boring conversations mid fight in order to advance the plot.
Art: 6
The art was average, in other words it gets a 5/10. Normally that would be the case however, I am raising it up by one point due to the very nice intro cinematography.
Music: 7
Music wasn’t bad, nothing to write home about, but still nice.
Total: 41/100